


Freefall

by analineblue



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-06
Updated: 2010-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-03 14:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/analineblue/pseuds/analineblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things start to get complicated, and John freaks out a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freefall

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to hitome_bore for the beta.

John takes a deep breath, sets his jaw, takes a quick stretch, and starts out for his third run of the day.

It’s after 2AM. Every bone in his body is aching, telling him he should be asleep, but instead he listens to the dull _clank_ of rubber against the metal flooring, over and over again—he has to, until his head is clear, until he can put his thoughts into some kind of order again.

He tries to put his finger on what exactly it is that has him out here marathon training in the middle of the night, but as usual, finds that he can’t quite get the math to work out right.

It’s like his mind is a jumble of electric wires crossing and twisting each other into knots (he thinks of Rodney, pulling apart panels in the jumper) and then suddenly there’s a spike in the energy somewhere, and it makes him start, sit straight up in bed in a cold sweat, hands shaking, feeling like he hasn’t felt since long before Atlantis--out of control. John can put his finger on that, at least, and it’s a little comforting.

But his heart is pumping now, blood flowing freely through all those the electric wires in his body, and his legs are burning, his knees aching. Somehow here, where there’s enough other stuff padded around his brain to lighten the impact, it seems okay to admit that alright, sometimes this thing with Rodney isn’t quite as easy as he wants it to be.

He’s not sure how this happened without him realizing it either, because it really _was_ easy, at first; at least that’s how he remembered it.

Easy and fun and exhilarating, and moving a thousand miles a minute like Rodney’s running commentaries on Atlantis’ latest catastrophe. There were explosions all over the place, and every kiss felt like a suicide mission, pumped with adrenaline and that almost-hysterical feeling you get when you know that you just might not be coming back from this one, but John didn’t care because he was so _happy_.

And he was still happy—-really happy. Things were great. They were easy, too, when John looked at it objectively like this, sweat starting to bead up on his back, and his chest, slowly soaking his t-shirt.

It was easy, kissing McKay, sneaking off to his quarters at night, and waking up to his lips--lazy kisses that usually went nowhere, but every once in a while went someplace _really_ nice, someplace that made John shiver and moan like a hormone-crazed teenager--and to McKay’s body, curled up next to him, pressed warm and heavy along the entire length of John’s body. All of that was really, really easy.

So easy that some things had kind of snuck up on John.

It had taken John a while to realize, for example, just how integral a part Rodney had become in his life. He’d had to go back and think about how they’d been together longer than they hadn’t, taking into account how long they’d known each other, and then John thought about what that meant, about how long he’d granted McKay express access to his lips, to his body, to _everything_ , and how much better that was than the sometimes really tedious, awkward months they’d spent in each other's company before he’d finally taken the plunge, and he knew that there was no way in hell he’d ever give this up willingly, even if it meant giving up some other pretty important things, like, say, his career, or his life. And that was just kind of scary.

John listens to the clang of rubber-on-metal, echoing against the walls, and forces himself to himself to stop thinking, because he’s pretty sure he’s reached his limit for tonight. In any case, John has made the executive decision, has given the order, whether all those wires and synapses like it or not.

He finishes the run in radio silence, his mind slowly making the transition to prime, not prime, clang, echo, _clang_.

**

He’s fresh out of the shower, and just barely has the chance to wrap a towel around himself when Rodney corners him, awake, poking his head around the bathroom door and letting out a plume of steam past him as John steps out. 

Then Rodney asks him, for the third time this week, if he would he please consider coming home with him for Christmas.

“We don’t have to stay at Jeannie’s the whole time, just a day or two, and then we can…” He waves a hand in front of John’s face. “You know, whatever you want. We can go to Niagara Falls, we can rent a cabin in the mountains, I can watch you snowboard. Whatever you want.”

“Rodney—" John starts, haltingly, but Rodney cuts him off before he really knows what he’s started to say.

“Jesus Christ, _again_? You’ve got to be kidding me! How many years do you have to sleep with a guy before you’ll let him take you home to meet the parents? And that’s not even what this is! My parents have been dead for ten years!”

John stares at him, not sure what’s brought this on.

“Sorry. I just… I want you to come. Please? Think about it?”

John nods, finds his voice, and goes for calm, easy. “Sure. I’ll think about it.”

“And can you please think about it a little more than you thought about it last year, and the year before that? Because I’m kind of starting to—"

“I promise I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you,” Rodney says, and then he sighs, and John watches him crawl back into bed, pulling the covers up under his chin.

**

The thing about Christmas, about Rodney and Jeannie and Vancouver, or a cabin in the mountains, or a hotel room in the city, or Jeannie and Caleb’s guest room is well, when John starts thinking about it, he gets this warm, twisty feeling in his stomach that creeps up into his chest and before he knows it he’s imagining Rodney in a fuzzy bathrobe, sipping coffee in a small kitchen with a Formica tabletop and gaudy flowers on the curtains. Where this particular vision comes from, he’s not sure—-some old B-movie somewhere, probably.

He thinks for a second about Rodney, slouching over his laptop in a hotel room while John lounges on the bed watching football, and then it’s back to the kitchen, and John’s frying bacon on the stove, and the curtains—-he ditches the gaudy flowers now, in favor of something black and white, checkered, maybe. And this is when he realizes that it’s not Jeannie’s kitchen, or some B-movie set that he’s imagining Rodney sitting in, it’s… it’s…

And then his hands are shaking, and his breath is coming short and fast, and Rodney’s lying there next to him, snoring away without a care in the world, and John’s just...lost.

He doesn’t know how to feel this way. How to want something like this. He feels like he _shouldn’t_. He can’t want more than this—-stolen kisses, perfect nights of lust and passion in this crazy alien landscape, and even more importantly, the best friendship he’s ever had. It doesn’t make any sense to want anything more than this. But he _does_. He wants more, and he’s wanted more for a long time. John knows what this means too, but he really, really doesn’t like it, because he just doesn’t know how to make something like this work.

It’s never worked in the past. Not for him, or for his parents, or for his parent’ parents. And this is Rodney, it’s _them_. It’s supposed to be easy. John doesn’t have time for anything that’s not easy, that’s not _right here, right now_ , and Rodney sure as hell doesn’t either.

And then Rodney’s stirring next to him, opening a bleary eye, and questioning John’s awakeness with a sleepy hand on his arm, and a grunt.

“Go back to sleep,” John whispers, and he’s already reaching for his tennis shoes.

**

“Okay, I’ll bite, what is it?” Rodney says the next morning when John returns from his run. He’s awake way too early, and understandably grumpy. “You think I don’t notice you sneaking off for god knows how many runs at all hours of the night? You know that’s terrible for your knees, right?”

John is silent, but for a different reason than he’s sure Rodney’s imagining.

“What did I do?” Rodney continues, on a roll. “Did I do something? What are you freaking out about? …Oh, oh, it’s the whole Christmas thing, isn’t it, well you know what? Forget it—-I’ll stay here. I have work to catch up on anyway, and it’s easier, and— What?”

John shakes his head. “You can’t stay here.”

Rodney rolls his eyes. “I most certainly can, and I will, and it has nothing to do with you, so I suggest you rethink whatever it is you’re thinking of saying to try to convince me it’s a bad idea, because it’s not going to work.”

“What about Jeannie?”

“She’ll get over it.”

“What about Madison?”

At this Rodney pauses a little. “Well, she’ll—-she’ll have to get over it too. I’ll send her something nice, it’ll be fine.”

John doesn’t say anything, just bends over, starts untying his shoes.

“Because the important thing is…”

John looks up at this.

“I don’t want to leave you here again. I won’t. Okay?”

“I can take care of myself, Rodney.”

“I _know_ that,” Rodney huffs. “That’s not the point.”

John ignores Rodney’s pointed stare as he kicks his shoes and socks into the corner, peels his shirt over his head, and stands up to head for the shower.

“We’re not done here,” Rodney says, to his back, as John steps out of his sweats, and starts fiddling with the shower, but by the time John makes his way back into the room ten minutes later, scrubbed clean and refreshed, the lights are out and Rodney is snoring lightly.

John crawls into bed carefully, and once he’s pulled the blanket up to his chest he wraps an arm around Rodney’s stomach, feeling the other man curl into the touch until Rodney’s back is pressed up tight against his chest. John listens to the thump of Rodney’s heart, feels it, feels Rodney’s chest expand and release with every breath.

Exhaustion dulls the tightness in his chest and in his throat when he allows himself to think about just how much this means to him, and just how important it is that this body between his arms keeps moving and breathing and John falls asleep, even though he knows they only have an hour until the alarm, thinking of hotel rooms and bathrobes and matching coffee mugs and kitchen curtains.

**

John’s in the control room, listening to Zelenka rattle on about some adjustments he wants to make to the jumpers. He listens with interest, chiming in here and there with a _cool_ or _sweet_ , and then suddenly Rodney appears out of nowhere, staring him down as if he’s late for a Very Important meeting or something. “A word, colonel?”

John raises his eyebrows, and Rodney rolls his eyes, not in a good way.

“A _private_ word.” He pauses for half a second. “Today, please?”

Zelenka looks up at him with a knowing nod, and John ambles off, following Rodney, who’s already stomping off down the hallway.

“What’s up?” John asks, tentatively.

Rodney doesn’t answer him, just turns around and gives him a withering look, grabs his arm, and pulls him into the closest transport.

**

They step out onto a small platform on the other side of the city, the wind whipping around them in short, powerful gusts. John looks up at the cloud cover overhead, and wonders idly if there’s a storm coming.

Rodney, for his part, clearly isn’t planning on wasting any time.

“Okay, John, the time for thinking is over,” he says, stabbing a finger in the air in front of John. “You need to tell me what’s going on right now, okay? Because you waking up at odd hours of the night and running all over the city, and then wandering around all day like a zombie—-not a good look on you, I have to admit—-is starting to just… You’re making me feel like the worst boyfriend ever, alright? If I did something, just tell me, and if it’s about the stupid invitation to Jeannie’s, just forget about it. It’s not that important. I get it, okay? Something like that is...well, kind of domestic, and I get that you don’t do domestic, so it’s fine. We’ll stay here, drink a few beers together on Christmas Eve, and I’ll finish this project Sam has been bugging me about all month, and nothing has to change, you can just forget that I even--”

“Hey.” And John is grabbing Rodney’s shoulders, holding him still as he tries to turn away, his body stiff. John finds Rodney’s gaze and holds it for a few seconds, feels Rodney’s body start to relax before he gives a spontaneous little start, and moves his hands to John’s neck, pressing their lips together.

John goes still and let’s Rodney’s warmth flood his senses and for a second, he swears he stops feeling the metal platform under their feet. It’s one of his favorite things about kissing Rodney, this whole weightless, zero gravity thing. Someday he’s going to have to remember to ask Rodney if it happens to him too, or if it’s just a pilot thing.

“I’m sorry,” Rodney says as they break away a moment later. “I’m sorry for bugging you.”

“You weren’t bugging me.”

Rodney shakes this off. “You pretty much told me no, and I didn’t let it go. That counts as bugging, in my book.”

“I never said no.”

Rodney gives a quick laugh. “Yeah, you said you’d think about it, which is John Sheppard speak for 'no'.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I really was thinking about it. Running is good for stuff like that.”

“Oh.”

John takes a step away from Rodney, looks out at the water past the platform, and up at the sky; they're both the same dull shade of cloudy grey, though the wind has died down a little now.

“Look,” he starts hesitantly. “I think it’d be nice to go with you to Jeannie’s, but…”

“It’s too much, right?” Rodney supplies, a little too eagerly. Then he shakes his head. “I know, okay? I get it. It’d be different if we were just—" Rodney waves his hand a little, a gesture that seems to mean whatever Rodney wants it to mean most of the time, and somehow, John almost always understands. “But now, when we’re, we’re… something else, it’s just too weird, too much, right?”

John doesn’t say anything, because his brain is trying to process the look on Rodney’s face, trying to read around this overblown explanation, because between all these words he’s trying to put in John’s mouth there’s clearly disappointment there, resignation, even.

And John thinks he might get what that means. His heart starts pounding, and the air feels heavy, weighted suddenly with all the things they never talk about, all the things you’re supposed to talk about with people when they mean this much—-the future, what all of this means, _feelings_. A few particularly heated conversations come to mind, from years ago, and suddenly John feels like he should be apologizing.

“Look, Rodney. It probably seems like…” He searches for the words. “Like I’m trying to push you away,” he says, and Rodney laughs a little.

“Gee, whatever would give you that idea?”

“I know it probably seems that way, but that’s not what I want. I want…” John hears his voice, low and breathy, filled with way too much emotion, and he doesn’t even have the chance to be embarrassed because Rodney’s looking at him like he’s just grown three heads or turned into some sort of alien bug—-a thought that almost makes John shudder a little.

Then Rodney shakes his head, and when John looks at him again he’s eying him suspiciously. “You sure about that?”

“What?”

“You sure you’re not trying to push me away, not trying to stop this, this _thing_ from going any further than it already has, not trying to stop me from getting too attached because you know you’re going to—"

“No, that’s not it.”

“Oh. Well…” Rodney shakes his head, stares at John for a second. “It really seems like you are.”

“Yeah. I know. I…” Rodney rolls his eyes at him, and then the next words come out without really thinking. “I’m sorry.”

And now Rodney just looks angry, his eyes lowered in that piercing blue glare that he reserves for only the most base of offenses.

“I don’t want you to _apologize_ to me, okay? And I don’t want you to tell me something you don’t mean just because you want to make this better. Do you really think something like that would work on me? _I’m not trying to push you away_.” He laughs, and John can’t help but want to cringe. “Bullshit, _colonel_. You’ve been trying to push me away ever since I met you, and you know it. But I guess the thing you don’t know is that _I_ know. And I don’t care. Because you can’t push me far enough away, okay? At least not right now.” Rodney is practically sneering at him now. “I’d like to see you try though, so please don’t stop on my account. I can be amazingly stubborn when it comes to this, I think you’ll find.”

“Rodney—"

“Shut up, John. I’m really not in the mood anymore.”

“Listen to me,” John says quickly. “I don’t think it’s too much, okay? Any of it. That’s not it.”

Rodney pauses for a second, and then lowers his eyes. “You don’t think _what_ is too much, John?”

“This. Us.”

“Yeah? And what exactly would that be.”

“What?”

“I’m asking you to put a label on it, colonel. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Put a label on what? On you? I can’t do that.”

“No, of course you can’t.”

John isn’t really trying to be patronizing, but it comes out that way anyway. “I don’t like it when you’re like this.”

“Is that so? Fuck you, John,” he grinds out, mean streak showing a mile wide.

“Jesus Christ, Rodney,” John says, trying not to let Rodney push all of his buttons, but failing pretty miserably. “Lay off, alright?”

“Fine, fine, how about if I put a label on it, then? How about ‘a really good lay’. How’s that?”

“ _Rodney_ ,” John warns, because now he really is getting angry.

“Fuck buddies—"

John can’t help it, he lunges at Rodney, pent up frustration spilling out of him, his momentum shifting in a second from holding it all in, to just letting _go_ —-all those sleepless nights, the cold sweats, the matching coffee mugs, the Formica table, the black and white curtains. He shoves Rodney, hard, into the railing and raises his fist halfway, then drops it quickly, the anger draining out of him at the look on Rodney’s face—-surprised, hurt, then determined, almost daring him--as he turns away. His hand is shaking as he uncurls his fist.

John hates this. He hates this feeling the most, this feeling that he’s going to do or say something he might regret and that he just can’t help it because he cares so damn much about this person next to him. Because no matter what, he can’t let go of this, he’s stuck.

He’s afraid to turn around so he doesn’t, not until he hears Rodney sigh and say “I didn’t mean that”, and then “come here”, and then John does, sort of.

Rodney motions for John to stand next to him, his back against the railing, water down below, lapping up against the sides of the platform, but he doesn’t want to, can’t really be that still right now so he paces a little, then stops and looks at Rodney.

“Just because it scares the crap out of me sometimes, it doesn’t mean I don’t want this.”

“I know,” Rodney says automatically.

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re right.” And somehow, with this, Rodney looks completely defeated. It makes John feel terrible, like he’s failed at what really should be the easiest thing of all.

“Look, when I think about going out to Jeannie’s with you, it makes me think about things I haven’t thought about in a long time. The future. What’s going to happen when all this is over. Settling down. And when I think about that, sometimes I can’t _stop_ thinking. Because I want it so much. And I don’t really know what that means.”

There’s a long moment of silence that stretches on and on while John looks up at the sky—-clouds moving away, a bit of light sneaking through--and then finally, Rodney sighs. He looks at John, his face somehow vulnerable and confident at the same time, like he’s figured out the missing part of a particularly tricky equation.

“I think I might have an idea.”

“Yeah?”

It turns out that Rodney is really good most of the time about explaining John’s feelings to him in a pinch, and he’s a little relieved to find that this what he wants now, more than anything.

He waits, and when he hears Rodney’s voice, deliberate, but a little rushed, tinged with a slight edge of panic, just like when he’s briefing the team or Sam about one of his breakthroughs that will no doubt save the galaxy, but not a moment too soon, he lets out a long breath, leans his hip against the railing facing Rodney and listens.

“Well, sometimes you wake up really confused, and you don’t know why, because everything is usually so simple, it just is what it is, and that’s great, because everything is wonderful and amazing, and you like wonderful and amazing but then you look over and you just can’t believe that it’s real sometimes. It’s so perfect, this person lying there next to you, but then there are those other moments where you just don’t know what the hell you’re thinking. You want to do something really stupid, something crazy--shout at the top of your lungs about how happy you are, how lucky you are, but you know that wouldn’t be enough, because this excitement inside of you is just bubbling out, and it starts to effect everything you do, which is ridiculous, and really, really annoying, but it happens anyway, and after a while you just stop fighting it. You think to yourself that there has to be a word for this, but there isn’t, all the words are inadequate, and after a while you stop caring about the words too, but at some point, you think there has to be something more, some kind of guarantee that this won’t go away at the end of the week or the month, or when we leave Atlantis, or when you go back to whatever you did before this. Being a soldier. Fighting some stupid war somewhere.” Rodney looks up and meets John’s eyes. “I don’t want to lose you, John. I can’t imagine a future without you in it, somewhere. …Okay, not just _somewhere_. With _me_. It has to be with me.”

John just blinks, trying to take it all in, and failing a little.

“So how was that for ‘what it means’?” Rodney’s voice is a little shaky and John suddenly wishes he were sitting down, but settles for leaning a little more heavily against the railing next to Rodney.

“Yeah, I think that pretty much covers it,” he says, slowly, takes a few breaths in and out.

“And you know technically that should be pretty simple. So what if this galaxy decides to try to kill us at least once a week? We’ve done alright with staying alive, and with keeping this going so far, right?”

John nods, enjoying this logic. “So all we really need is to keep doing what we’re doing, stay alive a little longer, and--“

“ _Bam_ , future. It’ll be easy.”

“Right.” John grins, and watches Rodney smile back at him, still feeling a little blindsided.

“I mean it, John.”

“Yep, _future_. Got it.”

“No, I mean, I really, _really_ mean it.”

And suddenly Rodney is standing in front of John, moving into the small space between them, and then his hands are all over him--his face, his neck, his shoulders, his back, and Rodney’s kissing him, slow and deliberate, his tongue mapping out places they’ve both probably been a hundred times before. And then he just holds John tight, and John just lets him, just breathes him in, and it’s a little like they’re both reminding themselves how important this is, and how important it is that this doesn’t go away, as if making this sensory imprint of their bodies on each other proves something, somehow.

It’s a little awkward, really, but John gets it. At least he thinks he does.

“I mean it too, Rodney. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I know.”

“Okay.”

They let a little space back in after a moment, and Rodney looks at him with an expression so focused, and so _fond_ that John has to will himself not to blush, it’s just so… _Rodney_.

He blinks, counts to five, tries to remember what it was that got them out here in the first place, and finally latches on to something. Jeannie’s. Christmas.

“So,” he says, and then clears his throat a little awkwardly. “Is that Vancouver offer still on the table?”

Rodney laughs. “Smooth. And yes, of course.”

“Sweet.”

John doesn’t say anything else, but he catches Rodney’s grin out of the corner of his eye, as they make their way off the platform and back to reality, and it makes him grin too. So much so that by the time they make it back to Atlantis proper—-they take the long way back, with only a small amount of grumbling from Rodney—-he thinks his face may have permanent stretch marks. All the sudden everything seems simple again, uncomplicated. Just the way he likes it.

John glances over at Rodney, impressed, and wonders what Rodney would do if he bought him curtains for Christmas this year, realizing that for the first time in maybe forever, he’s looking forward to a holiday, the same way everyone else always seems to.

Someday he’ll be able to thank Rodney properly for all of this, but for the moment, he figures Vancouver and black and white checkered curtains will have to do. Maybe he’ll throw in a pair of matching coffee mugs to seal the deal too.

“Just so you know, I’m holding you to this,” Rodney says as they approach John’s quarters.

“To what?” John asks deliberately, because he wants to hear Rodney say it.

Rodney rolls his eyes. “Oh, for god’s sake. To Christmas, John. Vancouver?” He pauses, swallows. “And the other stuff too. Happy?”

“Yeah, Rodney, I think I am.”

John grins, means it, and he knows Rodney knows it too, even if he’s only half-smiling his I-don’t-have-time-for-this smile.

And then the real smile breaks through, the one that says _yeah, I’m happy too_ and when Rodney says ‘see you at dinner’ and turns away, and the door swishes shut behind him, John thinks he might be feeling a little weightless again.

He thinks maybe he’ll lay off on the marathon training too, at least for a while--a bit of a New Year’s resolution, maybe. He’s never been very good at keeping New Year’s resolutions, but he has the feeling this year just may be different.

In fact, he’s sure of it.

**end**


End file.
